Time was when a theologian, it was thought, must be separated from the worldan ascetic working in the dim half-light of the old library, or scriptorium, or hall.

We were a dreadful crew, standing there in the half-light, our chests heaving, our rags dripping red.

Meanwhile Rama is performing a devil dance of his own in the smoke-clouds; the gong is ringing, cymbals clashing, onlookers shouting; the tresses of the women have fallen down and in the half-light look like black snakes writhing in torture; the women themselves are as mad as the Bacchantes and Menads of old fable: in a word, it is Pandemonium let loose!

Meanwhile there is some movement toward in the half-light of the inner room.

In the flickering half-light she looked a slim frightened boy.

He stepped closer, leaned, and then by the half-light made out the pale, delicate features of the schoolteacher.

Half a dozen of the drawn guns whipped up at the sight, but no one could make sure in the half-light of the identity of the man who had dashed out.

In the intimate half-light of the summer-house, he loomed prodigiously big.

There are chants, music, tapers, perfumes, flowers, the half-light which comes through the coloured windows.

All was blurred and puzzling to the girl in this world of half-lights, half-tones, eliminations and abbreviations; and she felt a violent longing to brush away the cobwebs and assert herself as the dominant figure of the scene.

The beautiful room, darkened against the midsummer heat, shimmered dimly in a transparent half-light, the vivid life of its bright chintz, its occasional brass, its clean, daring spots of crimson and purple flowers, subdued into a fabulous, half-seen richness.

In this half-light the funnel in which we were standing certainly did look a very diabolic and sinister hole.

"I know who you are," she mumbled, leaning forward and peering through the half-light.

He painted madly because the canvas was not yet covered and because he knew that within twenty minutes at the most the sun would rise behind him and the witching mystery of the half-light be gone.

Scarcely a hundred yards away curved out another bridge, and behind that another and another, down into the distance, all outlined in half-lights that shone like stars and flashed back like heaven itself from the smooth-running water beneath.

In this half-light and in silence I began to relieve Aniela of her furs, when suddenly the warmth emanating from her body seemed to enter into my veins; I put my arm around her, and drawing her close to me I pressed my lips on her brow.

Dressed in soft brown that blended subtly with the green of the willows, the gray of the alder trunks, the russet of rose and blackberry-bush, and the umber of the swinging grape-vinesin the flickering sunshine, the soft changing half-lights, and deep shadowsshe appeared to grow out of the scene itself; even as her low-sung melody grew out of the organ-sound of the waters.

Cecil suspected that this woman was trained in discriminations and half-lights to which she and her generation had joyfully made themselves blind.

Then the last rose tints faded from the sky; the horses plodded wearily through the water; on every side stretched the marsh, vast, lonely, desolate in the gray of the half-light.

They saw the face dimly in the half-light, with unexpressive dark patches under the pent-house brows.

Horrocks glanced at the profile of the woman, shadowy pallid in the half-light.

His thoughts ran under it like a stream, some through the focus bright and distinct, some shadowy in the half-light of the edge.

For a long time they sat in silence, gazing at the peculiar half-lights as the sun drew down.

There, in the half-light, I saw Mistress Ysolinde listening.

CHAPTER VII The same background, the same half-light tarnishing them as when I first saw them together.